1) Thornally and Shipman lead Winter Tuesday Night Marathon

Top seeds FM Frank Thornally and IM Walter Shipman share the lead at 4.5 from 5 and will face off in round six of the Mechanics' Institute's Winter Tuesday Night Marathon. Tied for third at 4-1 in the eight round event are NMs Egle Morkunaite, Igor Margulis, Victor Ossipov, Russell Wong and Nicolas Yap plus Experts Alex Setzepfandt and Larry Snyder.

2) Jamie Brett wins the Western Region Women's Chess Championship

Mea Culpa! Last week in the Newsletter it was reported that Teresa Haun won the Western Region Women's Chess Championship in Menlo Park the weekend of January 24-25. In fact it was 15-year-old Jamie Brett. Jamie is ranked #80 among all women in the United States at 1729 and we expect it won't be long before she finds herself a Class A player.

3) Bonin-Shabalov - 2003 Marshall Chess Club Championship

2003 will go down in American Chess as the Year of Alex Shabalov. The Pittsburgh base GM won the US Championship as well as practically every other significant event held in the country. One of the few titles to escape his grasp was that of Marshall Chess Club Champion. This rare slip for Shaba can be partly attributed to the following loss to the indomitable Jay Bonin. The veteran New York IM is well-known for his love of the game and annually ranks among the most active players in the nation.

In the following game Jay tries an interesting novelty in the Semi-Slav variation of the Queen's Gambit in which he sacrifices a pawn for pressure. Does he more than enough compensation for the pawn? Did Shaba over estimate his chances? I'm not certain what the answer is in this fascinating game.

NOTE - Just before sending out this Newsletter I went out to the mailbox and found the Winter 2004 issue of Chess Life waiting for me. Inside I found that GM Michael Rohde had beat me to the punch and already annotated the game! I encourage you to check out his excellent annotations on page 37 . I have added a few of his comments to my annotations in critical positions.with attribution in bold and a larger font size.

Bonin,J - Shabalov,A [D46]
Marshall Club Championship 2003

1.d4 Nf6

It's interesting that Shaba uses 1...Nf6 as a way to reach the Slav. One reason might be that he wants White to commit a Knight to c3 or f3 in the event of an Exchange Slav - 1...d5 2.c4 c6 3.cxd5 cxd5 4.Bf4 (4.Nc3 e5!?) 4...Nc6 5.e3 Nf6 6.Bd3 e6 7.Nc3 circumventing Botvinnik's old favorite 1...d5 2.c4 c6 3.cxd5 cxd5 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Bf4 e6 7.e3 Nh5 . Another possibility - and more likely - is he wants to avoid something like 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 or 3.Bg5.

2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 4...e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Qc2

As we will soon see the game continuation could also arise from Zvaginsev's line of the Meran: 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4 b5 8.Bd3 Bb7 9.0-0 Bd6 10.Qc2. In this line White would not necessarily choose to play Qc2, but if Jay's novelty proves to be of long-term worth he will have killed two birds with one stone.

I'm not sure I totally agree with this. After 14...Rc8 (played by Portisch against Z. Varga in the 1993 Hungarian Team Championship) 15.Be3 c5 (Portisch played 15...b4 16.Na4 c5 and lost) I thing White came claim some advantage with 16.Bxb5 and now:

This is Jay's very interesting new idea in which he cripples his pawn structure in return for activity. Odds are strong that he will lose the front e-pawn but compensation will come in the form of more active pieces. Previously seen was 16.Rd1 Qe7 17.Bf4 c5 18.e5 Nh5 19.Bh2 f5 20.Be2 Qg5 21.Bf3 Bxf3 22.Qb3+ Kh8 23.Qxf3 f4 ½-½ Gutman-Goloshchapov, Alushta 1999. Note that 16.e5?! fails to 16...Bxe5 17.Nc5 Bc8 and Black's position is superior to the game continuation as he has no weakness on e6.

This certainly looks natural. An alternative was 23...Kh8 trying to keep White's Knight from coming to c5. Rohde then suggests 24.Rf1! intending to play Bc4-d3.

24.Nc5 Bc8 25.Nd3 Rf8 26.Nf4 Bd7

White definitely has compensation for the pawn, but probably no more. One could easily imagine Shaba playing White in such a position!

27.Qd3 Rf7 28.Ng6 Qc5 29.Qd4 Qg5 No doubt Shaba was playing for a win here, but I wonder if the text overreaches. Maybe it was time to consider trying to bail out with 29...Qxd4 30.exd4 Nd5 31.Bxd5 exd5 32.Ne5 Re7 33.Nxd7 Rxd7 34.Rxc6 Re7. GM Rohde gives 29...Qxd4 30.exd4 Nd5 31.Ne4 as the way for White to play. He continues 31...Re7 32.Bb3 Be8 and White can keep improving with Rc1-c5, Bb3-a4, Kg1-f2, etc. while Black watches.

4) US Women's Olympic Team Challenge

President's Day Weekend is known in the Bay Area as time for the Peoples
Open and elsewhere in the country for the regional Amateur Team
Championships but the Heartland will have also a major event this year.
Noted Arbiter Frank Berry will be bringing some of the best female
players in the country (GM Polgar, WGM Goletiani, WGM Zatonskih,
IM Krush and WIM Shahade) to Stillwater, Oklahoma, for a unique event.
Details follow:

5) IM Silman vs The Rest of the World

Former MI member Jeremy Silman, now based in Los Angeles, has come out of
retirement to take on the world. Chessworld.net writes:

ChessWorld.net is hosting a "Rest of the World" match against IM
Jeremy Silman. This is a voting game where the "Rest of the World" (ROW)
votes for the moves against Silman, and the highest voted move played
after five days. The match has inspired the largest ROW team ever at
ChessWorld, well over 300 players at last count. IM Silman opened the
game with 1. d4 and the voting is underway. You can get in on the game
at http://www.chessworld.net - head for Play!..World team games after
logging in. The up to date position is also available on the TWIC front
page.